According to Wikipedia, CMU currently has an endowment of $815m so rather huge donation. I was actually surprised by this. For some reason I thought CMU had one of those endowments where $250m gets a urinal named after you.
CMU has an extraordinarily low endowment. They were not hit as bad during the economic collapse and resulting recession.
They weren't hit as bad yes, but they suffer in many other ways from their small endowment. It's one reason why they have one of the highest tuition costs of any university.
I was originally going to post that sometimes I wish gifts like this would be given to smaller, less fortunate schools. A top tier school like CMU is always going to be able to find new sources of endowment. I still believe this in general. However before reading the previous comments, I had no idea how small CMU's endowment was compared to other top tier universities. If the numbers I read are correct, CMU's $815 million is only 2.97% of Harvard's $27.4 billion. Not nearly what I assumed it was.
Wow, just looked at his book, "In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: The Political Roots of American Economic Decline" (published in 1991, at the time when Japan was today's China...), and this guy is about as far away from my libertarian worldview as you can imagine. He believed that America's problem at the time was that it didn't have enough bureaucracy (which is especially ironic given how bureaucratic gerontocracy to…
> And this guy is about as far away from my libertarian worldview as you can imagine. There is something really funny about a guy with a 'not so libertarian' worldview donating 265 million to a university and a guy with a libertarian worldview that probably will never be in a position to do so commenting on that.
> And this guy is about as far away from my libertarian worldview as you can imagine. There is something really funny about a guy with a 'not so libertarian' worldview donating 265 million to a university and a guy with a libertarian worldview that probably will never be in a position to do so commenting on that.
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No grudge, it just seemed as though giving an amount like that without any expectation of a return was not exactly a libertarian thing to do.
As for not knowing what your position is, that's correct but it's a safe bet that you are not a in position to match his donation.
Always amazes me that there are people out there who have $265mil to give that you can barely find anything about on Google. (Bill likely has a lot more too, as he is expected to give a very large gift to the University of Pittsburgh). More details on him here: http://www.postgazette.com/pg/11250/1172681-455-0.stm
What surprised me even more was that it was only the 14th largest donation in history made to higher education. Here's the list if anyone else was wondering: http://chronicle.com/stats/big_gifts.htm
That list is slightly outdated, missing the $10b endowment for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (endowed by its namesake).
Always amazes me that there are people out there who have $265mil to give that you can barely find anything about on Google. (Bill likely has a lot more too, as he is expected to give a very large gift to the University of Pittsburgh). More details on him here: http://www.postgazette.com/pg/11250/1172681-455-0.stm
The music school could really use the money! Hail to Pitt :)
What surprised me even more was that it was only the 14th largest donation in history made to higher education. Here's the list if anyone else was wondering: http://chronicle.com/stats/big_gifts.htm
That list is slightly outdated, missing the $10b endowment for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (endowed by its namesake). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Abdullah_University_of_Sci...
No grudge, it just seemed as though giving an amount like that without any expectation of a return was not exactly a libertarian thing to do. As for not knowing what your position is, that's correct but it's a safe bet that you are not a in position to match his donation. Feel free to surprise me ;)
People have a horrible misunderstanding of libertarianism. Libertarians believe people should be absolutely free to do what they want with their money. Libertarianism is not a fancy word for narcissistic hedonism. From a philosophical standpoint, libertarians should welcome charity/philanthropy as it is a free market solution to dealing with society's problems. They are merely against forced charity (i.e. welfare, medicaid, etc.). Mr. Dietrich's donation fits perfectly within a libertarian framework. Sorry to ruin the joke, but there's no hidden juxtaposition there.
No grudge, it just seemed as though giving an amount like that without any expectation of a return was not exactly a libertarian thing to do. As for not knowing what your position is, that's correct but it's a safe bet that you are not a in position to match his donation. Feel free to surprise me ;)
People have a horrible misunderstanding of libertarianism. Libertarians believe people should be absolutely free to do what they want with their money. Libertarianism is not a fancy word for narcissistic hedonism. From a philosophical standpoint, libertarians should welcome charity/philanthropy as it is a free market solution to dealing with society's problems. They are merely against forced charity (i.e. welfare, me…
Except that libertarianism is rife with narcissistic hedonists. A subset to be sure.
CMU has an extraordinarily low endowment. They were not hit as bad during the economic collapse and resulting recession.
They weren't hit as bad yes, but they suffer in many other ways from their small endowment. It's one reason why they have one of the highest tuition costs of any university.